Garance Franke-Ruta

Garance Franke-Ruta is a former senior editor at the Prospect. Her work has also appeared in The Washington Post, The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications. She was a 2006 recipient of a fellowship at the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University.

Recent Articles

The independent 527 group Democratic Courage today launched its first anti-Clinton attack ad: The spot, which focuses on an early Hillary Clinton gaffe in which she said the idea of $5,000 per child baby bonds held some appeal (perhaps mistakenly thinking of the $500 per child bonds she had earlier supported), appears to be designed with more of a national than an Iowa audience in mind. (The issue of baby bonds is hardly at the top of the mind of Iowa voters, who cite the Iraq war, health care, and jobs and the economy as their top concerns.) The Clinton campaign warned this morning: "Beware Video News Releases. A 527 group run by an Edwards supporter is planning a press conference this morning to announce a negative ad that it says it will air in Iowa. Only problem is that the group has NOT purchased a single second of air time there -- not even on cable." And, indeed, a visit to Democratic Courage's site shows the group using the online release of the video to fundraise for an...

Joe Biden should win some kind of prize for the most outlandish, if taken literally, campaign promise of the season. His campaign this afternoon sent out an e-mail with the subject line: "I will eat Rudy Giuliani alive at a debate." If that doesn't grab your attention, nothing will. From the fundraising appeal: I can't wait to debate Rudy Giuliani. Over the weekend, Rudy Giuliani attacked the Biden plan for a political solution in Iraq, "They're saying, 'We will divide the country.' (The Iraqi government) has to decide to divide the country. We're trying to create stability over there." I will eat Rudy Giuliani alive at a debate. Click here to contribute $25, $35, $50 or more to the campaign right now. The former mayor never misses an opportunity to display how little he knows about foreign policy. My plan is to give regions in Iraq more control over their daily lives. It's a way for states to share power with a central government and achieve a political solution to the chaos there...

Mike Huckabee has pulled statistically even with Mitt Romney in Iowa, and into third place in a Reuters/Zogby national poll -- ahead of Romney. New Hampshire does not look as good for him, but at least the state has finally set its primary date , January 8. Bill Richardson is touting a surge there. The neglected John Edwards gets a big New York Times story and -- while it can't be what he'd hoped for -- it's a must-read for historians of '04. It also raises the intriguing question of whether what Edwards learned from the 2004 general election race is that it's better to be in the Bush role than the Kerry -Edwards one. Certainly Edwards' attacks on Clinton's straightforwardness are more reminiscent of the campaign Bush waged against Kerry than the one Edwards waged against Dick Cheney in 2004. Michael Currie Schaffer deftly takes on "[t]he generational fallacy" at the heart of Andrew Sullivan 's argument for Barack Obama . And Obama decides that what his possible general election...

Michelle Obama has announced that she's going to delay her appearance on The View , originally scheduled for Dec. 5, until after the end of the Writers Guild of America strike. "Michelle Obama will not cross a picket to line to appear on 'the View.' When the strike ends she looks forward to appearing," says Obama spokesman Bill Burton . That could take a while -- under the worst case scenario, the strike may last until June 2008 (the last such strike lasted 22 weeks ). This actually raises a pretty significant question for the Democratic field. If the Democratic presidential candidates forgo their Dec. 10 CBS debate on account of a different though related strike , as they have said they will, and also commit to forgoing appearances on chats shows like The View until the WGA strike is over, as Michelle Obama now has, what happens if the WGA strike continues into early- to mid-next year? Hewing to commitments to avoid crossing picket lines seems likely to have some impact on the...

Two more Barack Obama data points worth noting: The Los Angeles Times ' Seema Mehta reports that Iowa City college students are organizing to disperse themselves across the state for Obama in an effort to turn the problem of the early caucus date into a campaign boon: "Hawkeyes for Obama" has named "hometown caucus captains" across the state. These volunteers are assigned a group of students who are originally from their hometowns, and meet with them on campus during the school year. Over winter break, "we'll keep in touch with them, make sure they know where their precinct caucus location is, and make sure they go out to the caucus," said Andrew Wiese, co-chairman of the campus group and a senior from Cedar Rapids. "We're planning on doing whatever we can to make sure supporters go out and go to the caucus over the break."... More than 5,000 University of Iowa students are Illinois residents, a pool of potential Obama supporters who must return to campus to vote. Hawkeyes for Obama...